LE UOF Video thread

[voodoo_man]

The item you see him hand over was proof of insurance, which he had retrieved from his glove box.


My suspicion, based on following the case only slightly, is that he likely misinterpreted the command "don't reach for the gun" literally, instead of as "don't move" which is what the officer clearly actually meant.

Did the officer testify? I did not follow the trial at all, so I do not know. Did the officer mean to say "don't move" but actually said "don't reach for the gun?"

The clear issue here is that regardless of whether the subject misinterpreted what the officer's commands were and regardless whether the officer meant to say "don't move" but said "don't reach for the gun" castile still made deliberate movements to something which the officer knew posed an immediate deadly threat risk to himself and others. Compounded with the fact castile was impaired, and has a history of being investigated by the police (vehicle stops) means that castile's actions may have been purposefully made in order to attempt to cause violence on the officer(s).

To me, having not seen anything in the trial, it really paints a clear picture of reasonable doubt of the officer's intention to feloniously kill castile, but rather the officer's lawful reaction to a deadly force threat.

[scw2]

Would using imprecise language saying something like "don't reach for the gun" instead of a very clear command like "don't move" expose the officer and department up to civil suits more than other legal shootings, even if they are cleared on criminal charges? I don't know what wording was used here, but just a general question for the lawyers and LE here.

[voodoo_man]

Would using imprecise language saying something like "don't reach for the gun" instead of a very clear command like "don't move" expose the officer and department up to civil suits more than other legal shootings, even if they are cleared on criminal charges? I don't know what wording was used here, but just a general question for the lawyers and LE here.

Lawyers can (and will) argue anything in a court setting.

In this particular situation the answer is no it does not matter as Castile was impaired and may have not had the ability to understand what the officer was commanding him to do anyway.

For the average person who is not impaired, there is simple reasonableness. Is it reasonable that an average person, after being stopped would continue to reach for a firearm after being told not to, repeatedly. The answer would be no in most cases, unless that person wanted to cause serious injury or death to the officer and/or others.

In the video I believe the officer yelled "stop" at one point during the interaction. Is that a legal catch-all for these situations? I think wording is less important than actions anyway.

If the officer simply said nothing and shot the subject (not this case, speaking generally) after that subject reached and/or touched a firearm during a vehicle investigation would the officer be more or less culpable? Would the officers actions be reasonable? Does the officer have a duty to make a verbal statement prior to use of force?

[TheRoland]

Did the officer testify? I did not follow the trial at all, so I do not know. Did the officer mean to say "don't move" but actually said "don't reach for the gun?"
.

He did testify, but I don't think the commands came up. My impression based on news summaries and based on the later part of the video (where officer is explaining the event to a supervisor) is that the officer was 110% convinced that he was touching his gun and not his wallet, so it would have seemed totally reasonable in the moment to give commands about the gun. I'm largely guessing, with the benefit of hindsight, that Castile didn't realize that was what the officer was seeing (maybe due to impairment), which is why he continually replies that he isn't reaching for the gun, and acts so confused after being shot.

[voodoo_man]

The blatantly racist (against white people) and misinformation of facts (gun was in castile's pants not his glove box), goes directly back to the "all cops are racist!!"



Pathetic and worthless opinion.

[breakingtime91]

So not condoning that he was smoking marijuana where it was not legal but just because he has THC in his system doesn't mean he was high at the time. THC takes a long time to dissipate from peoples bodies, sometimes up to 60 days after use. We can speculate that he was smoking marijuana at the time or before the shooting but it is just as likely (50%/50%) that he had done some form of the drug earlier. Unfortunate event where I think both parties had a hand in what transpired. The thing that concerns me as a citizen and someone who carries a firearm is how that went from 0 to 100 over a misunderstanding. My plan has been and will continue to be to put both hands clearly visible and ask for clarification on orders given in case I run into an officer who is not as level headed as the vast majority of officers we have on this forum. This is not a bash on police but I have been in a situation where a police officer clearly over reacted and had four uniformed marines feeling like we were about to be shot for getting our IDs, which he asked us to do.

Before anyone asks, I have searched a lot of people in my life. Sometimes I had to search up to 20 people myself in the span of a couple of minutes. I understand how events can escalate quickly, it personally happened to me. I honestly was surprised how fast it escalated with neither party apparently comprehending what was happening. Idk what the result of the trial should of been but there are a lot of pissed off people that this police officer walked, which I can understand. I also understand his side of it, though barely. Tough times.

[voodoo_man]

So not condoning that he was smoking marijuana where it was not legal but just because he has THC in his system doesn't mean he was high at the time. THC takes a long time to dissipate from peoples bodies, sometimes up to 60 days after use. We can speculate that he was smoking marijuana at the time or before the shooting but it is just as likely (50%/50%) that he had done some form of the drug earlier. Unfortunate event where I think both parties had a hand in what transpired. The thing that concerns me as a citizen and someone who carries a firearm is how that went from 0 to 100 over a misunderstanding. My plan has been and will continue to be to put both hands clearly visible and ask for clarification on orders given in case I run into an officer who is not as level headed as the vast majority of officers we have on this forum. This is not a bash on police but I have been in a situation where a police officer clearly over reacted and had four uniformed marines feeling like we were about to be shot for getting our IDs, which he asked us to do.

Before anyone asks, I have searched a lot of people in my life. Sometimes I had to search up to 20 people myself in the span of a couple of minutes. I understand how events can escalate quickly, it personally happened to me. I honestly was surprised how fast it escalated with neither party apparently comprehending what was happening. Idk what the result of the trial should of been but there are a lot of pissed off people that this police officer walked, which I can understand. I also understand his side of it, though barely. Tough times.

I understand that marijuana is not a heavy topic that most people, especially here, would say is a very bad thing. To most it is a "drug" quotation used specifically to add the emphasis of maybe.

The fact is that marijuana is not legal in many states, it is certainly not legal to operate a vehicle after smoking marijuana as you are per se intoxicated, this is the standard for many states. If you are legally intoxicated under the law when operating a motor vehicle, then it would be fair to say that you should not be handling a firearm?

I searched and I could not find if during the post-mortem blood test if they found active metabolites or not. I do not know enough about post-mortem blood analysis and if that is even possible. If castline had active metabolites in his blood then, legally speaking, he was high. The effects of which cannot be determined simply by using your, or my filter and/or experiences. I have seen people who were >100ng/ml who were perfectly fine and showed no obvious signs of intoxication during normal conversation but exhibited signs during SFST. I have also seen people who were 5-10ng/ml who were the mirror image of Cheech. Just like with alcohol impairment, it is possible he was on either side but that is why legally we do not have to speculate, as there is a real negative association with someone who under the influence of any drug.

Just to further explain it, if castile was determined to be high on PCP or heroin, through a post-mortem blood test, would that change the weight you assign to his level of impairment playing a role in this situation? Legally, does it have a different weight? A good lawyer will argue both sides, from my personal experience, juries tend to almost always see it as a negative.

I know this may sound as though I am defending the officer's actions, and in some respects I am, but I see this situation fairly plainly.

If you were to put yourself into his shoes. You stop a vehicle, smell the odor of burnt marijuana, see a small child in the back and maybe see some signs of impairment (like bloodshoot and/or glassy eyes). You began to speak the driver who hands you various information and then informs you he has a firearm. You, being a reasonable and prudent officer immediately tell him not to reach for it or touch it because you know what that would mean, but the male begins to immediately do that. Would you wait until the subject pulled the gun out? Would you wait until he had the gun in his hand? What is the threshold of the average reasonable officer? How many officers would have shot the male during the same scenario? I'd wager a good bit. This was not a misunderstanding, as I saw it from the video.

Castile could have simply put his hands up in the air and said "I do not want to move because I have a gun on me, please tell me what I should do." I'd wager a month's pay he would not have been shot. Instead he started doing the exact thing the officer repeatedly told him not to do. In this situation, you, me, anyone would have been shot if the circumstances were similar by any officer.

I think there is just too much media hype on this particular situation and that there is too much misinformation. The video, while being one piece of evidence does not show the whole scenario and as we already know from the acquittal that the jury had enough reasonable doubt to not return a verdict of guilt based on the evidence they saw. Evidence which we may not ever know in this particular case.

[breakingtime91]

I think we're on the same page. Did the officer state that he smelt marijuana? I also agree if he was impaired in anyway he shouldn't of had a firearm on him, period. Pretty sure that would get anyone's ccw revoked

[Doug MacRay]

Video from a few weeks ago showing UK Police officers and bystanders facing off with a man holding a knife and slashing at those who get close enough. The first officer had both taser hits fail to subdue the attacker and was on the defensive until backup arrived. This video shows how vulnerable unarmed (firearm) police can be when their less-lethal options fail. Someone with enough clothing on or with some sort of improvised taser-prong armor (like road atlases or other thick paper wrapped around their torso) could be free to stab and slash their way through a crowd until an armed responder showed up or until they were overpowered. Luckily this guy didn't really seem to know what he was doing with the knife.

[John Hearne]

When you get THC results back, you are provided with different numbers. One will reflect long term use and will stay in the system for several months. The level of this number will tell you how heavy of a user they are. The other numbers tell you whether the person could have been high at the time. The problem is that the active intoxicant disappears from the test results BEFORE the intoxicating effect goes away.

According to this story: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.2911866 Castile and his girlfriend had smoked before the car stop. To me, the odds are that he was stoned when he interacted with the officer and was shot. Marjijuana is an intoxicant - that's why people use it. It impairs judgement just like alcohol. Most of us wouldn't carry a gun while drunk and wouldn't be surprised if a drunk struggled to follow the commands of an officer. I'm not sure how Castile's case is any different. I have little sympathy for someone who gets stoned while riding around with his four year old daughter to begin with. While the impairment from marijuana is not as extreme as alcohol, it still reflects incredibly poor, selfish judgement.